Before we get to why your business needs data integration as well as the many benefits it provides, let's take a moment to understand what it is. In layman terms, data integration is when one brings together data from a variety of sources and channels it into a unified platform from where it can be easily accessed and leveraged. The first step in the process is ingestion, which includes myriad other sub-process, like cleansing, ETL mapping, and reconstruction. Data integration essentially empowers analytics tools to deliver actionable and efficacious intelligence aimed at enabling the achievement of better business results.



There isn't even a degree of doubt that data has unimaginable aptitude to transform businesses. Also, that is the precise reason why companies can't afford to wait to review data and then use it to contend with threats and explore opportunities in the market. Then there's also the fact that users demand real-time access to information. The point is that companies are beginning to see the potential of data integration. Also, for those who are still not convinced, here are a handful of the top benefits of data integration for your business.

  1. Enhanced collaboration: Today, a business' operations can't survive in a scenario where employees don't have access to the organization's data. Moreover, then there's also the consideration that the workforce is now increasingly mobile, which again necessitates the access to data for both individuals as well as shared projects. To that end, data integration helps by not only enabling collaboration across the company but also consolidating all the data generated across the entire company.
  2. Better efficiency: The proper combination of data helps reduce the time required for both, preparing data and then analyzing it. In addition to that, automated, unified views further, help cut down the dependency on manually collecting data. It means that the staff doesn't have to figure out connections from the beginning every time they require a report.
  3. Bring down the inaccuracies: Even a moderately-sized company will have a treasure trove of data, which means that there's more than enough number of things to keep an eye on. Case in point, manually gathering data requires the company's employees to know each account and location they may wish to delve into. They will also need appropriate software before they start down this path to make sure the data sets are accurate and complete. Furthermore, without data integration to sync the data, the business will need regular reporting to explain away changes, if at all.
  4. More accurate data: As time goes on, data integration helps enhance the data's value. With information being integrated into a centralized system, the business gains the ability to identify issues with quality and adopt necessary measures to deal with it. It, in turn, results in improved accuracy of data.

Even a gander at only a handful of the benefits of data integration is sufficient to demonstrate just how potent it is. So, if you too wish to thrive, as many others already are, you can see that the answer is in Talend data integration.